Celebritology 2.0: October 26, 2008 - November 1, 2008

Firestarter: Be careful when you summon the fire department to your next domestic emergency. Lingerie Firefighter from Hell may just answer your call. (AP) In observance of Halloween and all things spookified, today we consider these tales of depravity, which will leave your blood chilled and your brains addled. Proceed at your own risk. Mwah ha ha ha ha. Lady in the Water As much as we want to believe that celebrities are just like us, sometimes they are barking mad megalomaniacs who will stop at nothing and spare no cost to fulfill their ghastly desires. And what could be more frightening than filling a swimming pool with Kabbalah water? Don't ask Madonna, who apparently had plans to do just that before her split from Guy Ritchie earlier this month. The two were apparently in the midst of constructing the indoor pool at their English country home when they...

The 'View' panelists in costume for Friday's Halloween show. (ABC/Steve Fenn) Dear "The View" Producers: I just wanted to thank you for the best Halloween present ever: the image of a cross-dressing butch Elisabeth Hasselbeck. I realize she's meant to look like Ronald Reagan -- the jelly beans kind of telegraphed that -- but I think we can agree she makes a better Clay Aiken than Gipper in this pic. Hasselbeck? Reagan? Aiken? (ABC/Steve Fenn) Hats off for putting this one past her. (Though I'm sure it wasn't too hard to coax her to dress as one of the Republican right's favorite hero.) I mean, really, surrounded by the elaborate costumes of her co-stars -- Barbara Walters as George Washington, Sherri Shepherd as Abe Lincoln, Joy Behar as Teddy Roosevelt and Whoopi Goldberg as Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- Hasselbeck comes off as a preternatural Promise Keeper who showed up...

It's a relatively slow day, celeb-news wise, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to rag on Jessica SImpson a little bit more. Earlier I shared the happy news that Jess has hit on her hands with "Major Movie Star" taking the number one spot at the Russian box office. While scanning the photo wires this morning, I happened upon this picture of Jess attending Macy's 150th anniversary celebration yesterday in New York. Ignoring for the moment the fact that she's got less reason than ever to walk a state-side red carpet, lets consider her outfit. (AP) While it is somewhat refreshing to see a C-lister taking her fashion cues from Lovey Howell, something about this getup overwhelms Jessica, threatening to envelop her spray-on tan in a swoosh of gray polyester and fur topped off with a sprinkle of cubic zirconia. I'm having trouble coming up with the perfect phrase...

We love Patrick Swayze so much around Celebritology HQ, that not only do we own a "Dirty Dancing" talking keychain, but we've subjected ourselves to most of the movies in his lengthly CV -- the good ("The Outsiders"), the bad ("Red Dawn") and the utterly cheesy (take your pick). It is in this spirit that a Swayze film becomes our first entrant in a new Celebritology category: The Annals of Bad Movies, in which we lovingly poke fun at our favorite celebs for some of their more questionable roles and recognize the value of those films as the great basis for an evening of campy fun with a group of friends. "Dirty Dancing" was a smash hit and elevated Patrick Swayze from the ranks of good looking ensemble player to leading man. With just six words -- "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" -- Swayze proved his mettle as a...

Can you give me a brief update on who Kerry Katona is, why she is/was famous and the whole morning show fiasco? -- Submitted to last week's Celebritology Live discussion I'm answering this because several readers actually posed this exact same question during last week's Celebritology Live chat and via e-mail. Ah, the power of YouTube, the Web and schadenfreude. To put Kerry Katona in a context we can understand, she's a less-tattooed version of fellow Brit Amy Winehouse and about as famous in the U.S. as Tara Reid would be in England. She's a one-time pop star with one minor hit to her credit who of late has emerged on England's celeb-reality scene, winning "I'm a Celebrity -- Get Me Out Of Here!" At 28, she's also a mother of four with a well-documented history of substance abuse. In an interview last week (for those who can get away...